


stuck

by kayxpc



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, hockey injury, lardo is the best friend ever fight me, omgcp - Freeform, zimbits - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-13 22:50:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13580577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayxpc/pseuds/kayxpc
Summary: Bitty gets hurt during a game & Jack hears from Providence.





	stuck

**Author's Note:**

> my first work for omgcp!! I love hockey & then zimbits happened to me and now I’ve died and ascended to heaven.
> 
> amazing works & characters courtesy of Ngozi Ukazu :))

Jack asked permission during preseason to have access to the rink at night. His rookie year in the NHL was behind him but following a Stanley Cup year meant expectations were even higher than before.

In shorts and a T-shirt he’s running through drills; trying to knock a domino off the top pipe. The rink is empty but not eerie and not nearly silent with both earphones in and his phone tuned to the Samwell vs Yale game currently in its second period. They are up two thanks to Bitty’s assists.

_Thirty-seven, Lewis comes up the boards right side towards the Samwell goal and—_

Jack shoots the puck and the domino clinks off the boards behind the net. He sets it up again and skates back farther, off center and eyes it. As a kid it was always a bottle and then a can and then the smallest thing you could manage to hit. Jack always won that game against the kids in his neighborhood.

_You know what, Jesse, that hit did not look good. Stewart takes the shot and... nope. From the replay you can see clearly that Bittle did not see the puck coming._

It takes Jack a full minute of listening to the faint rumble of the crowd in the background, the shuffling of the announcers papers, the beat of his heart.

 _And it looks like Bittle will not return to the ice, Jesse_.

Jack drops his stick, hears it clatter to the ice loudly. He slams into the door before he can get the latch open. Tears at his laces and leaves his skates where they came off. Sneakers on, duffle bag, keys to his red Camry. Dial tone.

“Jack,” it‘s Ford, and Jack’s eternally grateful Eric saved her number to his phone.

“What’s happening?” Jack asks, out of breath. His car revvs underneath his foot and he realizes that he doesn’t have his seatbelt on and quickly buckles up.

“Jack, he’s– he’s okay. They want to take him to the hospital to get checked out but they think it’s just a concussion.” Ford’s voice is strained, the way that makes Jack picture her standing in the doorway helplessly, watching Bitty hurt, and Jack isn’t there.

“I’m on my way.”

Ford inhales shakily and simply replies “I know.”

Jack hangs up. It’s coming up on eight thirty and rush hour traffic is cleared by the time he gets on the interstate. The limit is seventy but Jack does ninety and loses feeling in his hands from gripping the wheel too tight.  
Somewhere along the way his Bluetooth reads a text from Ford.

_Going to the hospital, meet u there._

The only things that go through Jack’s mind on the hour drive are injuries like this that have ended careers, that have ended lives. Zuccarello couldn’t speak for four days after a skull fracture. Danault from the habs took a eighty mile an hour slapshot to the head two nights ago and had to be stretchered off the fucking ice.

Jack leaves the car door open at valet in front of the ER and nearly starts crying when he sees coach in the waiting room with Ford and a couple other of the rookies. The third period is still happening but Jack’s whole world is back there on a hospital bed.

“What room?” Jack demands, half delirious. Everything other than what’s right in front of him is blurry, unimportant. The waiting room is full and all eyes are on Jack. Coach Murray stands up with a placating hand like he’s about to tell Jack to calm down and really, Jack can not handle that.

“What. Room.”

“26!” Ford tells him hastily. The woman at the desk is wearing faded blue scrubs and her hair is tied back with baby spit up still in it. She buzzes him in before he even turns to her and Jack runs down the hallway. The local hospital is tiny and he knows his way around well enough by now. He’d been taking here for a few broken fingers. One weekend when Shitty had broken his wrist falling off a trampoline.

He raps his knuckles on the door but doesn’t wait before opening it. Lardo is by Bitty’s side: he’s laid back on the bed with his hand over his eyes and an ice pack bandaged to the side of his head. Otherwise, Bitty looks unharmed, and he wasn’t alone and Jack loves Lardo for that. She makes room for him, stepping outside to call Shitty back.

“Bits,” Jack breathes and his hands are halfway to him before he hesitates.

“Jack,” Bitty says softly, squinting up at him. He doesn’t move his neck or head and he only keeps his eyes open a moment.

“Bitty,” Jack says again, and he’s on the verge of tears because he’s terrified and he wants to hold him. “I– can I, where can I touch?”

“Legs.” Bitty’s mouth twists painfully when he says it. Jack places his hand carefully near Bitty’s knee. Every other part of him is drawn tense, tightened like a coil. Jack flips the main light off so that only the sink light is illuminating the room. Bitty exhales roughly, a sound of appreciation, and slowly blinks his eyes open. Jack gets lost in them for a moment, the same deep brown they were the last time. It takes some of the edge off.

“Where is the doctor?”

“Was already in.” Bitty pants. “I– I um... I don’t remember...”

“Okay. That’s okay Bits. I’m here.”

He squeezes his thigh gently and promises Bitty he’ll be right back. He grabs Lardo and listens to everything she says starting from the minute Bitty left the ice. The doctor ordered an MRI to check for a brain bleed or a skull fracture.

“I’ll take care of everyone else,” she tells him. “You take care of our boy.”

-

A nurse bustles in a few minutes later and notices the light before she quietly introduces herself and starts an IV. She scans the band on his wrist and starts a dose of morphine for pain. She’s wearing Scooby Doo scrubs and she draws a smiley next to her name on Bitty’s patient chart.

“That should be working soon, okay? Just give it a minute, call for me if you need anything.”

-

The beep of the monitor is constant and so is Bitty’s pain. Jack’s worry. Bitty’s hand is small and slightly sticky in his. His arm is pale and slashed with red and the entry point of his IV.

“It’s okay to fall asleep Bits. The medicine is going to make you groggy and you’re going to forget a lot but I’m right here, so just go to sleep if you get tired. I’m not leaving you.”

“M’kay honey,” Bitty hums slowly. His eyelids flutter for a moment before he goes still. Blissfully, Jack hopes.

In the next five minutes nurses come by to take him for the MRI and Jack makes Lardo show him the hit on her phone. He doesn’t ask for it, but she hugs him so hard and doesn’t let go when he starts to cry. Not until Bitty comes back, still unconscious but situated more comfortably with a warm blanket and a fresh ice pack on his head.

An hour later the doctor comes in, young, dark skinned and quick to the point.

“No break, no bleed. Just a nasty concussion. He’s going to be out of it for a while and in a lot of pain which we’ll give him a prescription for. There will be memory loss, so it will help if someone is with him for a while. Other than that, it’s nothing he won’t recover from.”

Lardo squeezes his hand and he squeezes back. She updates everyone in the waiting room and makes a food run for Jack before he sends her home. He eats a few fries and falls asleep maybe thirty minutes total. The wooden chair is bad for his back but letting go of Bitty’s hand is worse for him.

He hears Bitty’s dry lips smack open before he hears “water.”

Jack has a styrofoam cup with a bendy straw ready. Bitty drinks all of it. His tongue darts to and wet his lips and he sniffles twice. “You’re supposed to be in providence.”

It’s three am and Jack has morning skate in four hours. “You’re supposed to be safe.”

Bitty wipes his fingers through the water trickling down the side of his face. “What happened?”

Jack knows what concussions do to your head. Intimately, but the look on Bitty’s face as he blinks the sleep out of his eyes is horrifying. Makes words like memory loss seem more permanent than they are.

“You took a puck to the helmet in the second period. You have a concussion, but you’re going to be okay.”

“Oh. Okay.” Bitty still can’t move much without immense pain. He can see Jack though, feel his thumb running over his knuckles. His hair is dirty, sticking up in places and laying down in others. “Can I have a kiss?”

Jack’s face filters through a few phases before he nods and bends down. He doesn’t touch Bitty anywhere except the mouth, pressing their lips together softly. He doesn’t move.

“You scared me,” he whispers, reminding himself not to press their forehead together.

Bitty wants another kiss but tilting his chin up to do so is a definite no-go so he makes a kissy noise with his lips to get his attention. Jack huffs out a small laugh and kisses him again. He strokes his tongue inside tentatively, not sure if that’s what Bitty’s looking for. It is, though, and Bitty sighs happily underneath him.

“I’m okay. It doesn’t hurt as much now.” Bitty says quietly, cupping the back of Jack’s neck and pressing their foreheads together. It floods Jack with relief.

“I love you, Bits. I don’t know what I would do if...”

“Hey,” Bitty interrupts. His blonde eyebrows are drawn tight and it reminds Jack of the way he looked at the old oven the first time it burnt one of his pies. Ridiculous, really, how he’s catalogued everything about the boy in front of him but couldn’t realize he loved him. “Hey. I’m right here.”

Jack sighs, pressing his lips to his forehead. “I know.”

“I’m not going anywhere, honey. You’re stuck with me.”

Jack laughs softly and kisses him. Bitty runs his fingers through his hair. The blood pressure cuff on his arm starts to inflate.

“You’re stuck with me too.” Jack says, smiling like a fool.

Bitty just laughs and squeezes his hand.

Stuck doesn’t seem too bad to either of them, really. 

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you think, I’m still learning these characters!
> 
> Also- my tumblr is dropss0fjuptier if u wanna come hang or prompt me I would love u forever


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